Chapter Text
Machaon had thought nothing of it at first.
Little illnesses were not uncommon in the Argive camp. Too much wine, meat gone sour, minor wounds that had been neglected too long and started to fester. He and Podalirius dealt with these cases as they came, the occasional fever or stomach bug amidst the constant flood of fractures and gashes and arrow-wounds. Nothing worth alarm.
He would always remember the first case. A young man — no older than, what, thirty? He’d first stopped by for only a trifle. A brew to soothe a raw throat.
It had been a slow evening; there were two or three wounded staying the night in the medic’s tent, but no one who needed urgent attention, so Machaon had been happy to sit the man down and engage in a little conversation while the water boiled.
It was late. Well past midnight. The man was a little drunk, but not unpleasantly so. No, no, he felt fine, he insisted, his throat just ached a little from all the singing — oh, hadn’t they heard the commotion? Noise, laughter, a few of the fiercest Trojan warriors finally fallen; victory so thick in the air you could taste it. It was a night so joyous it almost made them forget how long it had been since they’d slept in their own beds.
But, as the man had complained good-naturedly, his throat would be hoarse by morning if it wasn’t nursed. And so Podalirius had fixed him a hearty cup of tea, rich with honey and thyme to soothe the throat, and sent him on his way.
In the weeks to come, Machaon would think back to that night. Only later would he remember the rasp in the man’s voice. How it caught on every other word. How sweat beaded on his temples despite the chill of the night.
How they’d chalked it up to exertion. Drink. Excitement. As any reasonable physicians would.
(Right?)
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"Melas died," said Podalirius bluntly, ducking into the medic’s tent.
Machaon, distracted, didn’t respond at first. He was crouched before a gasping man, suturing a gash on his thigh. It was finicky work; the slash was not a clean one, and it didn’t help that the man wouldn't stop fidgeting. He finished as swiftly as he could, murmuring reassurances to the pale man, and turned to his brother, his mind still catching up to the words. "What?"
"Melas. I found him dead by the western outskirts."
Machaon, whose thoughts were still on his injured charge, shook his head as if clearing it. "What? Who?"
"Melas," said Podalirius impatiently. "The mutt?"
"Oh." Machaon frowned. Melas was one of the wild dogs who lurked around the cookfires, hoping for scraps. He was a bold little stray who ran fast and learned faster. The men were fond of him; he knew simple commands, and they amused themselves some nights by teaching him tricks. "What happened? He run into someone’s spear?"
Podalirius shook his head. He looked unsettled. "Can’t figure it out. All I can think is he must have eaten something spoiled. I saw Patroclus playing with him just the other day, he looked fine then."
"Hm." Machaon gave half a smile, handing the man on the cot a small cup of something bitter and steaming. "They gonna bury him? Have a funeral?"
Podalirius gave him an odd look. "A funeral for Melas. Melas the dog. When there are countless actual people dying by the day."
"Oh, it’s not so bad as all that," said Machaon, glancing around at the mostly-empty hospital tent. "We’re doing well lately. And it would help morale."
It was such an odd suggestion that Podalirius had to laugh despite himself. "Well. Alright. We send him off tonight."
It was a quick, solemn little ceremony. They dug a small grave by the edge of camp, near the beach. The body lay to the side, stiff already, fur clotted dark around the mouth. Someone said the pup had been running only an hour ago. Someone else swore they’d seen him chasing flies. Now he looked smaller, as though the life had left the body and taken half its size with it.
"Poor brute," Patroclus murmured, crouching beside it. He had a way of gentling even the air around him; men lowered their voices without meaning to. He was fond of Melas, who had taken to following him around recently, sleeping outside his tent and licking the grease from his hands after meals. "He wasn’t anyone’s dog," Patroclus said, "so he had to make do with all of us."
The others smiled, teasing Patroclus for his soft heart as they gathered stones for a cairn. Someone brought wine, insisting the dead deserved a drop.
Machaon stood a little apart, watching the light on the dog’s teeth, the odd dark stain that ringed its gums. He told himself it was dried blood, nothing more. Still, the color was wrong — duller, like wine left too long in a cup.
He joined them when Patroclus called his name. The ground was shallow sand, easy to scoop. The smell of smoke drifted from the cooking pits. Someone sang off-key; someone else spoke a prayer, half in jest, and made the others laugh.
When they were done, Patroclus poured a little wine onto the mound. The liquid vanished instantly, swallowed by the earth.
"May Hades treat him better than we did," he said, smile fading slightly.
The men drifted back toward the fires, still chattering. Machaon lingered. The air tasted faintly of iron. A few black gnats hovered where the wine had soaked in. He rubbed his hands on his tunic, though there was nothing on them.
A faint breeze was coming from off the sea, the smell of salt starting to replace the smell of heat and hides and smoke. As the others peeled away toward the mess tents, Machaon cut across the path that led back to the healers’ corner of camp. The sun had already begun to dip his toes into the sea.
Machaon was still thinking of the dark wine soaking into the sand when he heard a voice behind him, small and hesitant.
"Lord healer?"
He turned. One of the slave girls stood a few paces off, barefoot in the dust , shoulders drawn up like a turtle’s. She was young, he thought, no older than sixteen. The girl’s hands were half-hidden in her skirt, but she held them out when Machaon beckoned her closer. "Come, child."
Across her knuckles ran two dark, round sores, the size of coins, the edges swollen, the centers dull and black like the bottom of a spent firepit. Machaon took her hands, turned them over . The girl watched his face cautiously. The skin around each sore looked oddly clean, not inflamed, not angry — just… dead. He prodded lightly with a fingertip; the girl didn’t even wince.
"Does it hurt?"
The girl shook her head. "No, lord. It doesn’t feel at all."
That, somehow, was worse. A wound that refused to speak of itself. Machaon frowned, thinking. No heat, no pus, no pain. Not quite a burn, either. Something new. A curiosity stirred in him, half interest, half unease, but he kept his tone calm. "How did you get it?"
The girl shrugged with one shoulder, eyes downcast now. "Just appeared one day. Sir."
His brow knit. Rot could do strange things. "Perhaps you’ve touched something impure. Wear gloves for a while," he said automatically, though the moment it came out of his mouth he regretted it. Gloves were a luxury, and one glance at the dirt on her face, the state of her clothes, told him the girl had none.
He fetched a little jar of salve from his pouch, goose fat and honey steeped with thyme, and spread a thin layer across the sores. "No gloves, hm?" he said, not unkindly. "Well, just — try and keep it covered, at least. If it reddens, grows, or starts to hurt, come and see my brother. He's better with such things." He meant it warmly, tried to smile, but his voice came out distant, already turning the image over in his head: the horrid black color, the lack of feeling. Sores like that should hurt.
The girl ducked her head and and scurried off, relieved not to be questioned further.
Machaon straightened slowly, wiping his hands on a rag. The sun had slid completely below the ocean now, and the campfires were beginning to wake, like little orange eyes opening one by one. Somewhere, Patroclus was laughing again, recounting a story.
He told himself the girl’s sores were nothing, a trick of rot. Still, as he walked on, he kept rubbing his palms together, trying to rid them of the memory of that cold, black flesh.